"I am afraid," Sir James said, "that you'll find our country-side but dull after all you've seen. We're pleased with ourselves, as most ignorant people are; we think we're good enough company on the whole, but music, or the play, or art, or that kind of thing, you'll find us wanting in. I'm afraid they find us very wanting at Lindores; but as for a kind welcome, whenever you like and however you like, and a good Scotch dinner, and sometimes a dance, if that will content you in the way of company——"
"I should be hard to please if that would not content me," said John. "I hope you will give me the chance."
"That we will—that we will," said Sir James, heartily; and then he added, "we have no young people about us—Lady Montgomery and me. Our two children are as far from children now as their father and mother. They are both in India, and their families grown up and gone out to them. So we have nothing young of our own about the house; but don't go too fast, we're not without attraction. In a week, I think, we're expecting a visitor that will make the place bright—Miss Barrington—Nora Barrington; you'll have heard of her by this time. She's a great favourite in the country. We are all keen to have her and to keep her. I'm not afraid that a young man will find us dull when we've Nora in the house."
Here John, who had become suspicious of the name of this girl whom everybody insisted on recommending to him, eagerly protested that he should want no foreign attraction to the house in which the kind old general was.
"Foreign! No, she's not foreign," said Sir James; "far from that. A bonnie English girl, which, after a bonnie Scotch lassie, is by far the best thing going. We must stand up for our own first," said the old soldier, laughing; "but nothing foreign—nothing foreign: if you want that, you'll have to go to Lindores."
John felt—he could scarcely tell why—slightly irritated by these references to Lindores. He said, somewhat elaborately, "They are the only people I really know in the county. I met them long ago—on the Continent."
"Ah!—ay; that's just what I say—for anything foreign, you'll have to go to the Castle," said Sir James, a little doubtfully. "But," he added, after a moment's pause, "I hope you'll take to us and your own country, and need no 'foreign aid of ornament,' eh? You must forgive me. I'm an old fellow, and old-fashioned. In my time it used to be thought that your French and Italians were—well, no better than they should be. Germans, they tell me, are a more solid race; but I know little difference—I know little difference. You'll say that's my ignorance," said this man of prejudice, beaming upon his companion with a smile in which there was a little deprecation, but a great deal of simple confidence. It was impossible not to condone the errors of a censor so innocent.
"If you knew them, you would not only see a great deal of difference, but I think you would like them a great deal better than you suppose," John said.
"Very likely—very likely," cried Sir James. It occurred to him suddenly that if his young friend had indeed, poor lad, been brought up among those "foreign cattle," an unfavourable opinion of them might hurt his feelings; and this was the last thing the old man would have done—even to a foreigner in person, much less to a son of the soil temporarily seduced by the wiles of strangers. And then he repeated his formula about being an old fellow and old-fashioned. "And you'll mind to expect nothing but broad Scotch at Chiefswood," he cried, laughing and waving his hand as he rode away, after the hearty invitation with which every visitor ended. "You'll get the other at Lindores."
And the door had scarcely closed upon this new acquaintance when the Earl made his appearance, with the smile of an old friend, quite willing to acknowledge old relationships, but not too familiar or enthusiastic in his claim. He was no longer the languid gentleman he had been in the old wandering days, but had the fresh colour and active step of a man who lived much out of doors. "The scene is very different," he said, with kindness but dignity. "We are all changed more or less; but the sentiments are the same." He said this with something of the air of a prince graciously renewing acquaintance with a friend of his exile. "I hope we shall see you often at the Castle. We are your nearest neighbours; and when you have been as long here as we have, you will have learned to shudder at the words. But it is a relief to think it is you who will now fill that rôle." Could a benevolent nobleman say more? And it was only after a good deal of friendly talk that Lord Lindores began to speak of the county business, and the advantage it would be to him to have support in his attempts to put things on a better footing.
"Nothing can be more arrièré," he said. "We are behind in everything; and the prejudices I have to struggle with are inconceivable. I shall have you now, I hope, on my side: we are, I believe, of the same politics."
"I scarcely know what my politics are," said John. "Some one told me the other day that the Erskines are always on the right side; and, if you will not be disgusted, I am obliged to confess that I don't know what was meant. I know what it would be at Milton Magna. I imagine dimly just the opposite here."
The Earl smiled benignly on the young inquirer. "The Erskines have always been Liberal," he said. "I know there is no counting upon you young men. You generally go too far on one side or the other: if you are not Tories, you are Radicals. My Liberalism, bien entendu, does not go that length—no Radicalism, no revolutionary sentiments. In short, at present my politics mean county hospitals and drainage more than anything else." Then he paused, and added somewhat abruptly, "I don't know if you ever thought of Parliament—as a career for yourself?"
At this John's pulses gave a sudden jump, and the blood rushed to his cheeks. Had he thought of it? He could scarcely tell. As something he might come to, when he had learned the claims of life upon him, and the circumstances of the country, which as yet he barely knew—as an object to look forward to, something that might ennoble his future and afford him the finest occupation that a man can have, a share in the government of his country—yes; no doubt he had thought of it—at a time when he thought more highly of Dalrulzian and of his own pretensions. But the demand was very sudden, and he had all the modesty of youth. "Parliament!" he faltered forth. "I—don't know that I have thought of it. I fear I know too little of politics—I have too little experience——" And here he paused, expecting nothing less than that he should be kindly urged to think better of it, and persuaded that it was his duty to serve his generation so.
"Ah," said the Earl, "you give me just the assurance I wanted. I need not hesitate to tell you, in that case, that my great desire is to push Rintoul for the county. If you had thought of it yourself, it would have been a different matter; but otherwise everything points to him—his position, our circumstances as the natural leaders, and the excellent chance he would have with all parties—better than any one else, I believe. You could be of the utmost use to us, Erskine, if it does not interfere with any plans of your own."
Now John had no plans; but this sudden check, after the sudden suggestion which roused all his ambition, was too much like a dash of cold water in his face to be pleasant to him. But he had time to collect himself while Lord Lindores was speaking, and to call up a sort of smile of assent, though it gave him a twinge of ludicrous pain. It was poetic justice. He had faltered and said No, in order to be encouraged and made to say Yes, and his vanity and false modesty, he thought, had got their reward. And all this for Rintoul! He remembered Rintoul well enough when he was not Rintoul at all, but Robin Lindores—a poor little lieutenant in a marching regiment. And now he was in the Guards, and the heir of an earldom. The change of position was so great, that it took away John's breath. In the days of their former acquaintance, there could not have been the smallest doubt which was the more important personage—young Lindores, who had nothing at all, or John Erskine, with a good estate which